Wells are generally drilled into the ground or ocean bed to recover natural deposits of oil, gas, and other natural resources that are trapped in subsurface rock formations. Such wells are drilled using a drill bit attached to the lower end of a drill string. Drilling fluid is pumped from the wellsite surface down through the drill string to the drill bit. The drilling fluid lubricates and cools the bit, and may additionally carry drill cuttings from the wellbore back to the surface.
In various oil and gas exploration operations, it may be beneficial to have information about the subsurface formations that are penetrated by the wellbore. Accordingly, certain formation testing operations may be performed to measure and analyze formation fluid pressure and/or composition of the formation and the formation fluid. Such tests may include extracting a sample of the formation fluid from the formation, cutting a sample of the rock formation, and analyzing the samples. These tests may be useful for predicting the production capacity and production lifetime of the subsurface formation.